


La Rosa Enflorece

by AMarguerite



Series: An Ever-Fixed Mark [7]
Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Angst, Darcy fans will probably be mad about where I start this fic, F/M, M/M, be forewarned, like VERY angsty, so uh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 15:56:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16267496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMarguerite/pseuds/AMarguerite
Summary: A prompt from Jackal21: what would happen if, in the vast "Ever-Fixed Mark" soulmate universe, the widow Darcy had to deal with the loss of a soulmate rather than the widow Fitzwilliam?





	La Rosa Enflorece

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jackal21](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackal21/gifts).



> A warning here that I began this a while ago, and abandoned it for various logistical difficulties in plotting, but Jackal21 asked me to post what I had. So here it is! There is a high chance I will not be able to finish this due to aforementioned logisticial difficulties.

The spring of 1815 had begun rather well for Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam. Napoleon abdicated. Richard secured a rather cushy post in the Anglo-Allied Army of Occupation in Paris. He and his partner, Colonel Bénet Pascal, managed to purchase a charming townhouse in Paris (in the Marais quarter, which had an intriguing overlap of Jewish and gay communities and which meant Bénet categorically refused to look anywhere else), and they’d had a nice long visit from Honoria and her partner Isadora. Though Richard had often heard people describe Paris as a Mecca for those who did not religiously follow Church of England heterosexual orthodoxy, he hadn’t realized just how true it was. He had spent most of his adult life in the quiet permissiveness of Army life, where as long as you didn’t make an exhibition of yourself, everyone was fine with your having a particularly good male friend; and had visited Honoria in Scotland, where Honoria and Isadora daily walked down the Main Street of Aberdeen, holding hands in perfect safety, but Paris— God, it was something else. No one seemed to mind— more than that even; no one seemed to think having a partner of the same sex was anything unusual or even worthy of notice. He was more relaxed, more open, and, as a result, Bénet was happier and more secure in their relationship than he ever had been before.

In earlier years Bénet had always been prickly about one of Richard’s few hard-won certainties— that he could be and was attracted to both sexes, rather than just one— but Richard had suddenly realized, in the middle of a tiff on this subject that was about to become a knock-down, drag-out fight, that the issue was not how he identified, but a difference of outlook that had never been directly addressed. Bénet had been taught by his parents that love was unconditional and argument an ordinary manifestation of it. Richard had been taught by his parents that love could and would be revoked if he failed to act a certain way, and that argument about his behavior was the signal of an imminent loss. As a result, when Richard did care enough about something to argue, it was something he was willing to lose everything for, and approached it accordingly.

Laying this out had helped immeasurably; and the openness of living together, not because they were on campaign, but because they wanted to, without anything catastrophic happening, soothed long held tensions and insecurities for both of them. They were partners now, on equal footing, at an equal pace, marching freely into the world. And so when a letter from Mrs. Darcy came, the hand illegible and shaky, the direction written out by someone else, Richard handed the letter to Bénet with a stilted, “It’s from Lizzy.”

“It’s to you,” said Bénet, misunderstanding the gesture. “Pity. Lizzy promised me a full rundown of that ball where Caro Lamb tried to cut off her soulmark and fling it in Lord Byron’s face. I was going to send it on to _Maman_. She lives for that sort of gossip.”

“That happened years ago, didn’t it?” asked Richard.

“Yes, but Lizzy tells it in _such_ a way. The way she describes her husband’s reaction! I doubt poor Mr. Darcy had ever been as mortified in his life.” Bénet had picked _Les liaisons dangereux_ back up but then realized Richard was still holding out the letter. “ _Qu’est-que c’est, mon amour_?”

“I don’t know,” he said helplessly. “I can’t read her hand and the direction is not hers—“

“Give it me.”

Bénet laid it flat on the end table beside him and read it through with an increasingly worried expression. A sense of dread settled into Richard’s muscles like an ague; he fought the impulse to shiver.

Bénet reached the end of the letter and assumed his best bedside manner. “Ricard, sit down,” he said, with professional kindness.

He woodenly obeyed.

Bénet’s gaze flicked over him. “I think you have some idea what this letter contains.”

Richard didn’t know what to say. He clasped his hands.

“There was a fire, in the kitchen at Darcy House,” said Bénet gently, reaching out to him, and laying his hand over Richard’s clasped ones. “Only the kitchen, stillroom, and some of the storerooms were damaged. But Lizzy was in the stillroom when the fire spread.”

“But she’s—“

“She is shaken,” said Bénet, consulting the letter, “but she is fine. And Georgiana was away from the house, visiting a friend.”

Bénet had not mentioned Darcy. Richard knew why, without being told and his hands began to tremble despite how tightly he held them. Bénet squeezed his hands and said, gently, “They were soulmates, your cousin and Lizzy, in the English sense of the term. And you know Darcy’s disposition.”

“He went in for her.”

“He did,” said Bénet, “and got her out. But Lizzy writes that Darcy… felt some responsibility to help out all the domestics, and to try and contain the fire from spreading across Soho Square. He went back in.”

Richard tried to maintain his composure but his voice cracked when he asked, “How—how did he…?”

“Darcy succeeded in putting out the fire, but the smoke… he was scarcely conscious when they found him, and they do not give him good odds. It is quite possible that… with the time it takes for letters to reach us, that he....” Bénet looked searchingly at Richard and said, in a tone of gentle command, “Come here.”

Richard tried, but his legs didn’t seem to work and he found himself on his knees before Bénet, shivering, before Bénet gently pulled him forward. Richard buried his face in Bénet’s lap, clenched fists on his own thighs.

“Let it out, _mon amour,_ you’re with me, it’s safe,” Bénet said, gently running a hand through Richard’s hair, before it came to rest, possessively, on the back of his neck.

Richard could not allow himself to cry. He couldn’t understand why. “He— he was my best friend as a child,” said Richard, feeling more bewildered than anything else. He ought to cry; and yet he could not conceive how such a one as Darcy could be _gone._ “We were always together when I was on home leave.” He appealed to Bénet. “He was— you even met him. You recall he and Lizzy met us together by accident in London? At that bookshop, just after they had been married and our regiment had been sent back to England to recruit and regroup after that awful siege at Burgos— he hadn’t known. No one ever told him of my mark, I never told him— but do you remember how good he was?”

“Yes,” said Bénet gently. “As I recall, Lizzy realized it first, and was so determinedly welcoming he caught on.”

“Yes. After the initial shock, he was— he was so kind about it. Do you remember? He shook your hand and asked us to Pemberley for Christmas. He never does that for people he doesn’t know. None of my sisters’ spouses were invited to Pemberley until Darcy had known them at least a month and even then— not for Christmas. And he— he—“ he felt the tears now, rising up his throat. He choked out, “He told me, as you and Lizzy were chatting, that he was so glad to know I had found my soulmate, and that we deserved every happiness. The Christmas visit— he knew my father wouldn’t welcome you for Christmas so he deliberately chose— he wanted to make sure we might be together for the holiday....”

“I know. And he and Lizzy were always so kind, and so attentive when we visited.”

“I was so sure he would never wish to speak to me again, but he did— I have visited Pemberley more with you than I had as a child. He is— he was—” Richard blew out an unsteady breath. He never cried during battle, either; perhaps it was only because there was so much to do that he could not bring himself to cry. “I should write to get leave.” He rose, ran a hand down his face, and moved decisively over to his writing desk. “Will you write to Lizzy?”

“Yes; I should like to be sure she has the address of my grandfather, if she or her domestics have any lingering coughs.” He rose and carefully slid a bit of ribbon into his novel, to hold his place. “I forgot to mention— she wrote that you are, in all probability Darcy’s executor.”

“Let me begin the letter in that case,” said Richard, abandoning his own letter to his division head, asking for leave, and writing shakily to Lizzy, ‘ _My dear Lizzy, Please know Bénet and I will be leaving Paris as soon as we have secured leave to do so.’_ Then, casting his mind over his family, how they might react, added, ‘ _I fear the our beloved family may descend upon you soon. Pray write to Marjorie and she will stay the flood. Did you return to Pemberley? I will have my aide make copies of this and send one to your London residence and one to your sister Mrs. Bingley as well.’_

This accomplished, it was easy to secure leave— they were only peacekeeping after all; Napoleon was securely on the island of Elba— and they were in London two days later. They went first to Darcy House, thinking that Darcy probably would not be moved, and guessed rightly.

As soon as the butler let them in, Lizzy came flying down the stairs, in a beautifully draped day gown that, the last time Richard had seen it, had been a lovely shade of daffodil yellow, and was now black.

He had expected such confirmation, but it still felt as devastating as a cannonball to the stomach.

Richard was astonished at the change in Lizzy, not just in her dress. He had first met Lizzy at his Aunt Catherine’s estate in Kent, where she was visiting a friend of hers, and she had enlivened that prison of formality and dullness with her music, her wit, her speaking, sparkling glances. She had been then (and he had assumed, would be ever after) a lively, pretty creature, always walking or talking, her sun kissed complexion glowing against her gowns of white or pastel muslin. Now she was a pale imitation of herself in black, her eyes very red, her liveliness quite vanished. There was an air of fragility to her he had never before seen. She scarcely had the energy to do more then stretch her hands to them saying, “Richard! Bénet! Thank God you are come,” in faltering accents.

“Lizzy, my dear,” Richard said helplessly, and enfolded her in his arms.

Lizzy burst into tears, hands fisted in his lapels.

Richard knew nothing he could say would make this situation at all better but tried, “We will stay with you wherever you care to be, Lizzy. I imagine this house is not… comfortable.”

“It is not,” she agreed, with difficulty. She had always had a defensive sense of humor and she pulled back with a sprightly, “But it is worse to think of staying with your father or Aunt Catherine. Pardon me for saying so.”

“No, no, it is the truth,” said Richard. “Should you like Bénet and I to stay with you?”

“Oh please! Georgiana is here but she has not left her room since yesterday, when Fitzwilliam….” She had to pause; and when she regained some measure of self-composure, said, in a rough, low voice, “I cannot tell you how grateful I am to see you both. If I am alone with my thoughts I am sobbing within minutes.”

Bénet said soothingly, “We are here for you, Lizzy. Though perhaps we may be here for you in the drawing room, over some tea.”

“Of course. You have traveled so far. Please—“

She turned to the butler who said, kindly, “It shall be seen to, Madame.”

Richard noticed that all the servants treated Lizzy as carefully as if they were handling Limoges china, which perhaps accounted for that air of fragility, so foreign to her usual demeanor. But it was also physical weakness; she spilt tea all over the cloth when pouring out, and through Bénet gently offered to serve, she shook her head and grimly continued on with her duties as hostess. Richard didn’t mind that his cake was oddly sized and crumbling (he couldn’t eat anyhow) and he recognized that very English impulse of relying upon tea to address all of life’s problems, and of falling back on formalities in the face of disorienting chaos. How often had he flusterdly, but properly apologized to opponents in the scrum of battle?

He left Bénet to do the talking, however. Bénet discussed the journey from Paris while Lizzy tried to reknit the shreds of her self-composure, and then asked after her health. Lizzy could talk coolly and calmly enough of that; and, soothed, as most people were, by Bénet’s best bedside manner, could talk a little to Richard of Darcy’s estate and will, and all the business that awaited them.

Darcy’s great-uncle, the judge, had taken on all the funeral arrangements; he was at court that day, but sent a letter with all he had done, and Lizzy and Richard were too weary to do anything but write back, agreeing to it all and thanking him heartily. Having a solid set of tasks to do soothed Richard a great deal, and he, Darcy’s secretary and Lizzy, carefully leaving vacant Darcy’s usual chair in the bookroom, began going over his correspondence. It was a discouraging task. Darcy had been a great man, with many correspondents, and affairs of business. Then, too, there was the depressing matter of writing to all appropriate family members. Lizzy took over drawing up a list of these, after discovering that the sight of her husband’s handwriting overset her, but confessed that she did not know if she could set down in writing that her husband had died the afternoon previous.

“I can begin on that,” said Richard, passing a pile of bills over to Darcy’s secretary. “Here, these are all the bills; you can check to see whether or not they have been paid.”

The secretary bowed and departed.

Richard turned to Lizzy, half-drooped over her own, elegant secretaire. It seemed she was only keeping her head up because she was leaning her cheek against her hand. He said, gently, “I have written many such letters over the years. I cannot say it is ever easy, but it will be easier for me to take on such a task.”

“Thank you,” said Lizzy, wearily. “I used up what little strength I had all last evening.”

“On our extended family?”

“Your warning was a good one, but Marjorie is visiting one of her sisters. I managed to write a very incoherent letter to her last night, after… after great-uncle Darcy drove everyone out and took on the work of meeting with the funeral furnisher, but I do not expect Marjorie to be here until the funeral the day after tomorrow.”

“Well, I am here,” said Richard, lightly. “I fancy I have learnt defensive strategy from the best.”

“I hope you have a strategy to help me through tomorrow,” said Lizzy. “For today I asked the servants to turn away any Fitzwilliam except you and Bénet, saying I had given myself the headache from crying and could not receive anyone.”

“That seems to be a good strategy. And we can always say that your headache became much worse because of all the letters you valiantly helped me sort through today.”

Lizzy laughed, unexpectedly. At Richard’s worried look, she explained, “I am sorry, it is only— very early on into our acquaintance, a certain young lady tried to win Fitzwilliam’s affection by commenting on just how many letters he had to write, and I am not sure I realized the half of what he took on.”

“Was the young lady yourself?”

“No, no. At that point I was more intent on provoking Fitzwilliam than praising him. He annoyed me terribly. I told you at Rosings, when first met— or at least, I believe I did, that Fitzwilliam refused to dance while in Hertfordshire. I should have specified that he refused to dance with _me,_ so of course I wished to spite him by showing how little I cared about him in return. I did manage to convince myself of it tolerably well, until I stumbled across him in Derbyshire that summer and realized that we were….” It seemed suddenly impossible to think that Lizzy had laughed only moments before.

“Yes,” said Richard, gently.

Lizzy rose hastily and got out, “Excuse me, I must dress for dinner,” in a choked voice.  

Dinner was a subdued affair. Richard exerted himself to make conversation until he realized the effort of responding to it was beyond Georgiana’s current abilities. She was as silent and shocked as she had been after the whole Wickham debacle. Lizzy was exhausted by the events of the day; and though she exerted herself to talk, by the time the soup had been removed, she was drooping over her plate.

After dinner they were all silent. Lizzy picked up a novel, but seemed to be staring blankly at the pages rather than reading, and Georgiana sat before the fire without attempting any kind of occupation. Bénet wandered the room, and eventually decided the silence was oppressive. He settled upon the piano bench and picked out a melancholy Sephardic tune with one finger. It was one of his favorite songs and Richard had heard it often, but it had never felt quite so haunting before.   

“You don’t feel like playing something a bit more cheerful, Bénet?” Richard asked from where he was taking care of all the family letters, informing everyone of Darcy’s death. It was almost a rote task, after all the letters of condolence he had sent over the course of his career.

“No,” he replied. “I don’t know how to play any others.”

Lizzy cracked a smile. “Are there lyrics to it, Colonel Pascal?”

“Yes, and do call me Bénet,” said Bénet. “We are family.” He began the tune over. “ _La rosa enflorese en el mes de mai… mi neshama s’escurese sufriendo del amor_ ….”

Richard set down his pen to listen. He always loved to hear Bénet sing. Bénet had a rich but rather melancholic baritone, and a sense of nuance and dynamics beyond the ordinary amateur. His voice always seemed particularly suited to the unaccompanied Sephardic music he liked to sing while engaged in some household task or other.

“I’m not sure I ever realized that was in Spanish,” said Richard, when Bénet took his hand off the piano keys. “Or is it?”

“It’s not,” said Bénet. “It’s Ladino, my dear.”

Lizzy closed her book, looking interested. “I’m unfamiliar with that language.”

“It’s a Jewish dialect of Spanish,” said Bénet.

“What are the lyrics?” Georgiana asked, almost too softly to be heard.

Bénet paused, expecting more, but Georgiana was too embarrassed to continue. Bénet hastily said, “Forgive my pause; it has been some years since I’ve attempted to translate Ladino. My family left Spain in 1492, and spoke French ever since.” He played the melody through once again and then sang, “The rose bush blossoms in the month of May. My soul feels only darkness, the anguish of my love. Ah hurry little dove, hurry and come to me. Come close my love, come fast to my rescue. The nightingales sing their gentle sighs of love. My soul, my very being, so helpless in your spell. The nightingales sing high among the flowering trees, while those rest in in their shadow, know only of love’s pain.”

“Grim,” observed Richard.

“Not all lyrics can be written by Beaumarchais and da Ponte,” Bénet replied snippily.

Richard felt a surge of weary affection.

“I like the lyrics,” said Lizzy, rising and moving towards the piano. “Shall I improvise some chords for you?”

“Anything is probably better than my playing,” said Bénet.

Lizzy and Bénet bent their dark heads over the keyboard; Bénet rather pleased that Lizzy had taken his side over Richard’s, and taught her more melancholy Sephardic songs. It was rather a slapdash performance, since Lizzy’s skills at the piano were never very good to begin with— the charm of her performance had always been in her choice of music, which was generally lively, and suited to her own elementary skills, and the general sweetness of her voice, rather than great technical proficiency— but Bénet assured her she was only following tradition. “These were songs my mother and the maids would sing, as they worked around the house,” said Bénet. “Unaccompanied, mostly, except for some improvisational percussion with washing boards or pie tins.”

“One could call a pianoforte a percussive instrument,” said Lizzy. “Beethoven certainly seems to think it one. Don’t you agree Georgiana?”

Georgiana had been listening to the music, watching Lizzy and Bénet at the piano, with an expression almost of interest, but at being directly addressed, shrank in on herself. Another tentative inquiry on Lizzy’s part sent Georgiana scurrying back up to her room, with a very soft, “I am unwell, I will retire for the evening.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Lizzy said, helplessly. “She will not talk to me.”

Richard rose and went over to the piano. “It’s alright, Lizzy; you are doing the best you can. Georgiana just… needs time. Darcy’s loss has hit us all differently.”

“Was she like this after her father died?”

“This withdrawn? Yes, she was.”

Bénet paused in his tune and said, “I suppose you are Georgiana's sole guardian now, Richard.”

That, more than anything else, made him realize the enormity of the loss. He closed his eyes and sighed. He had never quite understood how many responsibilities Darcy had carried, and how gracefully he had carried them. “I really don’t know what the options are, for Georgiana. I imagine that must be weighing on her.”

“I thought she would remain with me,” said Lizzy, rather startled. “When we married, Darcy said Pemberley would be mine, for my lifetime, unless we had children, and I—” She abruptly began to cry. Lizzy had spent the past few years in a somewhat desperate round of visits to doctors and watering places, accompanied by the curiosity and unkindness of various relations, who assumed she had never borne Darcy a child out of sheer willfulness. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no,” said Bénet, taking her in his arms. “Let it out. Tears are like a bloodletting for the soul. There is not shame in it.”

Lizzy wept for a good ten minutes, and was too exhausted to linger. She dragged herself up to her room.

“Shall we retire as well?” Richard asked. “It’s been a day.”

The well-trained staff Darcy employed had never commented on the fact that Richard and Bénet shared a room, and Richard was absurdly grateful for it today. There was nothing more he wanted in the world, at that moment, than to to lay within the circle of Bénet’s arms.

He could tell, however, in the lightness of Bénet’s touch, that Bénet was worried about him.

“I’m fine,” said Richard.

“You are not fine.”

“I am tired, that is all,” said Richard, tightening his grip around Bénet’s waist. “Darcy is— was a conscientious man and that makes it easier.”

“Easier, yes, but it cannot be _easy_ ,” said Bénet.

Richard didn’t bother denying this, and decided to change the subject. “What did you do while I sorted five thousand letters?”

“Visited _Maman_ ,” said Bénet. “She’ll come by tomorrow. I tried to explain that Christians didn’t need help washing the body, nor did they sit shiva, but she still thinks it very bad for grieving people to be holed up on their own, and as Lizzy seems to need company— but not that of your extended family— I thought it would do no harm. The worst _Maman_ will do is feed her and Lizzy ate nothing at all at dinner today. She ought to eat.” Bénet ran a hand up through Richard’s hair. “If you need to sell out, _mon amour_ , I can as well. I’ll set up a practice somewhere in Bloomsbury.”

“I have enough from my mother’s death, my dear,” said Richard. “You don’t have to work.”

“Yes, but I’ll grow bored with nothing to do,” said Bénet. “And then I shall become enormously catty, and then you will hide in the stables for all the rest of our lives in order to avoid arguing with me.”

“Grim prospect,” said Richard. “What if I bought you a parrot? You could teach it to argue with you.”

Bénet let out a huff of laughter. “A plan for everything I suppose.” Then, after a pause, “Ricard, _mon amour_ — have you given any thought as to what we shall do during the funeral? Do you want me to go back to my parents for the day, like when your mother died?”

The thought was a dreadful one. He’d hated being without Bénet that day. But at the same time, forcing Bénet to meet his family seemed a terrible thing to do. “I think. It— good God, I really… it’s really not fair to you either way, is it?”

“I’m a Jew,” said Bénet dryly. “I am inured to a certain amount of unfairness in this life.”

Richard buried his face in Bénet’s nightshirt. “Bénet, I love you, but I really don’t have it in me to argue this evening. Please just tell me what you want and I’ll do it.”

“I would rather be with you.”

Richard realized that he would have preferred the opposite; he would rather Bénet went home to the people who did actually love him unconditionally. It wasn’t worth a fight, but it was at least worth a warning. “You know,” said Richard, “there are very good reasons why we always stay with your family, when we are in London? The main one being, my dear, that I don’t want to see you treated the way my family treated Honoria’s soulmate.”

“Gallant, but useless,” said Bénet. He petted Richard’s hair. “We are earthly partners, Ricard. We must go at this world together.”


End file.
